


Peter Nureyev and the Bad Time

by MrBurner



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Angst, Brainwashing, Dark Matters, Emotional Manipulation, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Mind Control, Non Consensual Surgery, Set some time after Season 1, brains dont work like that, doing dark stuff, gross brain stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:01:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25116568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrBurner/pseuds/MrBurner
Summary: A lot of stuff here involves Souls messing with Juno's mind. I think it is time that someone broke Peter too. Sorry Pete.EDIT: THERE'S A PODFIC NOW??? https://archiveofourown.org/works/28209957 LoonyLu is WONDERFUL. THANK YOU! https://archiveofourown.org/users/loonylu/pseuds/loonylu
Relationships: Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel, peter nureyev/pain
Comments: 17
Kudos: 59





	Peter Nureyev and the Bad Time

When waking up in an unexpected room, it’s wise to consider your options before leaping to your feet. Are you alone? If not, is your company pleasant? Are the windows a viable exit?

It’s a lesson I’ve learned from experience, though to be frank, not recent experience. The last night I’d spent in company had been with Juno, and given how that had ended-

I filed away that pang of Juno Steel pain with the rest. Lingering does not look good on me.

Besides. As I’ve aged the risk involved in having a casual night of debauchery has loomed larger. I’d rather keep my head in both ways than lose it in one.

Alas. Sometimes- if for example, you had a needle pressed into your throat, if you had been kidnapped in your very own hotel room- it cannot be avoided.

So then. My options. Wherever they had taken me was dark, the air tasted faintly medicinal. I was upright. Hands fixed somewhere at my sides in metal. Feet the same. My head, when I tried to turn it, found itself held in place- a more unusual form of containment, though not unheard of. I could only assume they didn’t want me to see my hands. All the better to stop lockpicking, et cetera.

My captors clearly didn’t know who I was. A useful advantage.

With a twist of the wrist I could feel the metal seam. Thin, but not too thin for my fingernail pick. A Cuff Lock- the favourite of interplanetary kidnappers everywhere. Tricky, but not impossible, certainly not for someone who knew them as well as I did.

Problem identified, now was the time to work, which meant the time to distract as well. My captors would certainly be watching. The least they deserved for their efforts was a show.

“Hello?!” I added just a shadow of waiver to my voice. I was Baron Leu, model and all-round law-abiding citizen. What did they want with _me_? “I have money- I can-“

“Please, please.” The voice to answer was small and hard with an edge to it like laughter. Unfamiliar. “There is no need to play pretend.”

Ah. So no to Baron Leu. The question became then who they thought I was. Clearly someone who played in grey morality, who might expect to find themselves held captive in a dark room.

I settled back a little and smiled thinly. “Then we won’t. Who am I speaking to?” Perhaps too direct, but with so little to go on it was time to be blunt.

“You are in the company of Dark Matters.”

“And your name?”

The voice laughed lightly. “Hardly important. I am not an agent. I suppose you could call me… a subcontractor, Mr Nureyev.”

I almost let the nail pick fall.

Such a little thing.

Only a name. How many had I worn now?

And I shouldn’t let them see me sweat, I shouldn’t be let my weakness show, but-

But it sent cold through me. Dark Matters with that- with _me-_ and only one answer to how they’d got it, but Juno would never, because he’d left me but that wasn’t betrayal, not like this, and I knew he would _never-_

“Ah- yes, yes, very nice.” That voice again. And I couldn’t shrug off its light touch now. I wanted a knife. In lieu of one I focused my mind- they had my name. Fine. I would take it back. Freedom, then I’d cut the knowledge from every Dark Matters agent I could find. This one first.

“What.” I asked in the small, flat words I could manage, “Is ‘nice’.”

“Your reaction to your name. Set off a lovely neuro pattern- lighting up right across the frontal lobe, memory centres, nerves, it’s remarkable. You really didn’t like that.”

My pick dug deeper into the metal. Too deep. I had to be careful; Cuff Locks were liable to tighten to finger breaking levels at a wrong move. “An illegal brain scan without dinner. I thought Dark Matters were the good guys.”

The voice in the dark laughed. “Handsome and funny! But wrong. This is all very legal. And not a brain scan- not as you would understand it, anyway.”

File the second part for later. I added it to the growing pile of concerns at my feet. “I don’t remember signing you access to my head. Sadly flattery doesn’t cause amnesia.”

“A sad thing indeed. No- you did not. We have bought your debt, ergo we have bought you, Mr Nureyev. Ergo you were collected and given to me and ergo, here we are.”

“Ergo.” My throat had become a little dry. Dark Matters had me, and they had the legal right to have me too. I reminded myself that it didn’t matter, that I functioned outside the law anyway. But for all that- to be _owned._

Even Juno had never owned me. A good thing too or his leaving would have cut deeper. Another reason attachment was a losing game.

And then despite myself-

At least if they’d bought me from my creditor then Juno hadn’t passed on my name. How could I have considered that he would?

How silly to be distracted by sentiment.

It still gave be a burst of something bright inside my chest.

“So I am Dark Matters property. Very lovely for you.” Soon the Cuff would give. And then… I had never cut a throat with a pick before, but I was eager to try out my technique on the voice. “And they waste me in medical experimentation.”

“Oh no, no. _No._ ” The voice tutted and I had the sudden image of a disapproving, shaking head. “I am not experimenting. What a waste it would be! You have such useful skills, Mr Nureyev. It is only unfortunate that they come attached to the rest of you.”

“You’ll make me blush.”

“Have you wondered why you are awake?”

“To enjoy your company?”

“No, of course you hadn’t. You assumed the drug had worn off? No, no. We measure very carefully. We wanted you awake. I am a Neuro mapper. My work requires a conscious mind, I talk, you listen, you think, I watch your brain and see how it all links together. You understand? We only require a conscious _mind._ ”

Something cool pressed against my cheek- a hand. I started at the suddenness, and then chilled at the reality.

The room was not dark. Even in the pitch black I would have seen the voice move so close.

My eyes weren’t working.

“It is temporary.” Soothed the voice, “Don’t fret. This is careful work. I must talk to you to understand who you are. But to have you wriggling all over the place? The neuro mapping would be very difficult like that. We don’t want to damage your useful parts.”

The voice laughed. Soft, still.

“We cut open the head to see the brain. We shock in just the right places to turn your body on or off. You keep your mouth so we can talk, you keep breathing and working. But the eyes are off. The arms and legs. Did you think you were picking your Cuff? I could see the sensory patterns lighting up. It is amazing how powerful the Phantom Limb Sensation can be.”

They cut open the brain-

My head. Held tight in place. For surgery.

“Mr Nureyev? Don’t panic, now. Would you like a little stress relief? Here.”

Oh- _oh-_ the strangest feeling. Light and distance, something buzzing somewhere.

“Pleasure centres responding perfectly. Well done Mr Nureyev.”

“Thank you.” My voice was distant too, and somewhere deep that worried me. But, but-

“Let me tell you what we will do.” The voice cleared their throat. “You belong to Dark Matters. We are recruiting you, but we don’t want a criminal. We need loyalty. We need a company man- albeit one who is a master thief. So I will find out how your brain works, I will take out what we don’t want. I will make you that man.”

It took a moment for my endorphin drugged brain to catch up. Then-

Horror! Enough horror to cut through whatever he’d buzzed into my mind. A burst, a sting of jaw clenching, painful, terrifying panic _._ No, _no_.

I pulled against the restraints, but now I knew it wasn’t real I couldn’t feel movement in my body. Just the heavy weight of nothing.

“Oh. Not a fan of that. I understand. I do. People like you- the autonomy- the freedom to survive. That’s what you value above all other things. To be changed and controlled, I think you’d even sacrifice the man you love to escape.”

Would I? I wish I wouldn’t, but suddenly the fear of this was so close and Juno so far-

The voice knew about Juno.

“Oh, a thought pattern waver! You actually _might_ choose him over freedom. True love after all. How wonderful.”

The voice’s delight sounded horribly sincere.

“And yes. I know about him. Neuro mapping is sophisticated. Almost mind reading. I know you well enough to read your thoughts as they happen. Juno Steel. Detective, sometimes collaborator- though by your memories he seems to try his hardest to stick to some kind of morality. A man with no heart in love with one who has nothing else. Very romantic. Very star crossed of you, Peter. I didn’t think you had it in you.”

A gentle padding of feet away from me. The sound of a chair as the voice settled themselves down.

“Now. In this session, since he came up so organically, we are going to talk about Juno Steel. He takes up a lot of your mind after all. I’ll ask you questions and you can answer, or you can stay quiet. You’ll still think of him. And once I know him… well, I will know you. Are you ready to begin?”

I dragged forth all the defiance I could find, I scraped it into a sneer.

“There is more to me than Juno Steel.”

“Oh of course, of course! Don’t worry. Nobody can pin down the elusive Peter Nureyev. Not even the man he loves.” Another laugh, then tapping on a keyboard. “But he is a start. How did you meet him? Oh- as Agent Glass. What an exciting first date it must have been!”

The voice lapped against me. On and on, on and on. And with every word spoken I gave more of myself away- I knew it now. I tried to stop it. To catch my thoughts before they could lead to the secret parts of myself, the things I thought I had filed so safely. But the voice prodded and poked. They knew exactly how to phrase it, to drag forth connections and expose me.

It was exhausting. Humiliating. Painful in a way I can’t quite surmise.

Then we reached that night, the night after the Martians, after Miasma had died. I told the voice about the way he’d tasted and felt, how I’d touched him and felt something bright.

We reached the moment I’d known Juno had left me.

“Sneaking out on you. And the worst part was… you knew he would.”

I said nothing. I had stopped talking a hundred half questions before.

“You knew that a good man like him wouldn’t see anything worth saving in you. Oh, Peter.”

The empathy was fake. Why would it be anything else? But hurt and raw, something in me strained for it anyway. Perhaps they had already changed me to make me weak and stupid. I almost hope they had.

“It will be okay. There is no need to fear that happening again.” The voice sighed, gentle and comforting. “Dark Matters won’t abandon you. You are an asset. You matter to us.”

I wanted to say something pithy in return. I had no energy for it. I thought of Juno and our night together and I missed him like he’d been cut out of me.

The voice in the dark must have seen the bone deep weariness on my face, because their chair moved and their feet came padding back to me.

“Ah, all tired out. Time for a break. I’ll turn you off, let you rest. But I’ll be back.” The hand against my cheek again. “Don’t fret.”

“How long have we been doing this for?” My voice was hoarse. Dull, even to me. “We didn’t… we didn’t start with Juno. Did we?”

A chuckle through the dark. “Ahhh… Clever, clever Mr Nureyev. It is a careful process. We begin by asking about childhood. Do you remember this morning when you told me all about Mag?”

I did not remember. I saw myself over a hole, or already falling. I could see no way to stop it, or even to slow the fall.

Was this what it felt like to give up?

“I’m playing. Of course you don’t. I ran a gentle current through your memory centre afterwards. It is useful to start with a blank canvas when exploring new areas of the mind. Soon you won’t remember telling me about Juno Steel either. It is for the best. Too much strain is very bad for the neurons.”

We’d done this before. And I was still here.

And I’d still be here when he came back to start again.

“… Once you’re done. My mind will-,” I couldn’t get the words out. It would be admitting that I had stopped trying, that I couldn’t escape, that they were-

No. No I would rather face the truth than hide from it. I tried to clear my throat, but the movement was difficult when secured by the brain.

“You’ll take my mind. Will I- will I lose my memories too?”

The voice laughed. One final time. They knew who I was asking about. They could see him lit up all over my thought patterns.

“You won’t remember that you’ve lost him, Peter.” Another touch of those cool fingers on my cheek. “Isn’t that better than what you have now?”

**Author's Note:**

> I might continue this. Juno’s reaction would be like. Peak tasty maybe.


End file.
